$583.4M in New Machinery Orders Highlight US Economic Strengths

New orders of metalworking machinery, measured by the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, totaled $583.4 million in May 2026. This was a 1.8% decline from April 2026, but a 47.8% increase over May 2025. Over the first five months of 2026, manufacturing technology orders totaled $2.77 billion, a 31.9% increase over 2025.

While recent events have caused much trepidation in the general outlook among businesses and consumers, the U.S. economy remains on a solid footing, and robust machinery demand is cause for optimism. Investments in manufacturing technology signal that manufacturers expect to need additional productive capacity to meet growing demands on output. Unit orders continue to grow at a pace below that of order value growth. Some of this trend can be attributed to normal market forces that affect pricing; however, a far larger share is due to the growing demand for automation as firms attempt to increase output to match stronger demand projections amid nearly half a million current manufacturing job openings.

Since December 2025, orders from contract machine shops, the largest customer of manufacturing technology by industry, have been falling behind the growth of all orders. In May 2026, orders were nearly 10% below the average of the three prior months. Much of the recent order growth came from capital investments from the aerospace industry. Despite a pullback in orders in May 2026, additional capacity needs emerging from expanding space production will drive additional machinery demand. U.S. economic growth in the first quarter of 2026 was accelerated by outsized demand for industrial equipment, largely attributed to constructing and equipping data centers. May 2026 orders of manufacturing technology placed by industrial machinery manufacturers reached their highest value since November 2017. This buildup in capacity could foreshadow an upside surprise to business investment in the coming GDP prints.

Forecasts of manufacturing technology orders have anticipated flat to slightly declining activity in 2026. Through the first five months, orders are up nearly 32% and trending well ahead of a typical lead-up to IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show, which should give an additional boost to orders in the latter half of the year. Be sure to tune in to AMT’s Summer Economic Webinar on Thursday, July 16, to hear the latest forecast from Oxford Economics.

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